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Godot Version
4.4
Wildcards Used
N/A
Game Description
Dash, jump, and adapt in PolyDash—where platforms grow, shrink, and move to the beat!
How does your game tie into the theme?
Platforms dynamically grow, and shrink to the beat of the music. Player's must mesh perfectly with the dance of the growing platforms to reach the end!
Source(s)
https://github.com/lethalgem/godot-wild-jam-79
Discord Username(s)
N/A
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
3
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Comments
I was vibing with the music at the menu hahaha My internet didn't take very well, but .exe runs just fine here, checkpoint 7 is insane
Neat little platformer! Five stars for audio synched with the gameplay. Super cool mechanic. I found the camera controls a little rough, but otherwise a very tight platformer. Great work!
I'm so happy that you enjoyed the game! Understood on the camera controls. As we dove deeper into the topic of platformer cameras, we were shocked how much can be tweaked and how much of an impact it has on the game. Next time we'll have to place much more emphasis on the camera!
the game is very punishing, miss a timing once, youre dead.
you basically have to start running again as soon as you respawn or else youre gonna miss the next timing ...
not ideal for the beginning of a game.
but i like the concept, it just feels a bit rough around the edges
Thanks for the feedback! We tried to balance the punishment of missing a platform with the rapid respawn time. Unfortunately the platforms firing off immediately after respawning just increases the consequence instead of alleviating it. A good thing to know for our next game!
I'm glad you liked the concept :) We'll have to build in more time for refining the experience next time!
Thanks for the submission! I had some lag spikes, but in general it was pretty fun
I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Sorry about the performance issues. Thought the visuals were simple enough that it'd run without issue. We'll be putting more time into optimizing performance in our next game!
Nice game, is a bit stuttery both in the web and downloaded version for me
Sorry to hear it wasn't performing well in either version :(
Optimizing is definitely on the list of topics to get familiar with. I thought that the low number of platforms at any time would mean the game would run buttery smooth. Which definitely has not been the case.
This was a cool game. I have almost the exact same feedback as Julienke, especially about the one-shot platforms. The only difference is that I think that platforms growing/shrinking goes perfectly with the theme.
Thank you! Glad the theme came through strong for you :)
We'll have to improve on our balancing of rapid pace and fairness when respawning in our next game!
Overall the game is fun, even though I personally think that the theme of "growing" wasn't incorporated all too much unfortunately. It still makes for a nice platformer though, albeit very difficult. The first thing that caught my eye however was the ability to freely move in the title screen, which was honestly a lovely idea. The movement is also pretty fluid, which is important for a game like this.
The music is catchy and makes for a cool atmosphere. It doesn't quite sync up to the gameplay as much as I thought it would though based on the game description. What was a bit disruptive when playing was the fact that you pretty much only get one shot at the spawning platforms before they completely disappear until you die - and they disappear fast! And it gets amplified by the fact that your character's movement kind of carries over into a respawn, so as soon as you die, you have to immediately re-orient to try and get right back on track, or you will have to take another intentional fall to get another shot. There were several times my character went right off after respawning, so this part (respawning + pace) was a bit frustrating.
One technical aspect (might be relevant to people trying out this game after me as well!): In the web-version I had quite severe performance problems, especially when the green bushy platforms spawned/increased in size. This was however not the case in the downloadable version.
So all in all a game with a lot of style and cool movement, but with room for improvement when it comes to balancing and the realization of the Jam's theme.
(One example of balancing: I loaded checkpoint 8 (which is a cool feature to test the game btw!) and the moment you spawn in the platforms are already gone. You die, they respawn, so far so good. But if you get on the first platform just a wee bit too late, you actually can't make it all the way up the first batch because the platforms despawn faster than you can traverse, even if you perfectly time your jumps once you get started.)
Thank you so much for the in-depth feedback!
I'm so glad you thought the game was fun and the movement was fluid :) We spent a ton of time trying to nail the feeling of the movement.
I totally understand the frustration from the platforms starting as soon as the character respawns/checkpoint selects. We really wanted the game to have a rapid-fire pace. Fall, respawn, go. In the end, I think that has led to the game feeling a bit unfair in spots. It's a great learning that we'll take into future games!
Glad to hear the download runs much better! We were shocked it ran in the browser at all when we exported it.